posted 11 August 2004 03:10 AM            

rs of the lands they had
taken,but went on seeking further conquests. At this stage the Arabs
formed the the ruling class amung Muslims;the Islmacist state was
essentially an Arab confederation. The idea that non-Arabs should
become Muslims ,although clearly sationed by the Koran,was still so
unfamilar that any convert who was not a full member by descent of an
Arab tribe had to become a mawali,or clients,of one of them.
Persians,Egyptians,Berbers of Northern Africa and even Arabs by blood
and language who had failed to prove their full membership of the
dominant caste became mawali. Page 40
In theory they were treated equal to the 'pure' Arab Muslims but
impratic they were treated with contempt by these Arab warriors and
for some time denied more than a residual share in treasure accuired
by their conquests.
Page 40

Peter Mansfield
The Arab World: A Comprehensive History
by Peter Mansfield

posted 11 August 2004 04:28 AM            

[Al-Jahiz, an important Abbasid thinker who lived during the 9th century CE, tries to assess, in the following passage, the status of the mawali, the non- Arab "clients" who had recently converted to Islam and were an important force in bringing the Abbasid dynasty to power. Note how this selection reflects the tensions of the growing diversity of Islamic society as it was transformed into a multi-ethnic empire.]

A new school had arisen among these mawali [non- Arab "clients", converts to Islam], a new group of upstarts emerged, who claim that the client, by virtue of his clientage, has become an Arab, since the Prophet, may God bless and save him, said, "The client of a tribe belongs to it," and "Clientage is a form of kinship like descent. It can be neither sold nor given." We know that when Kingdom and Prophethood belonged to the non-Arabs, they were nobler than the Arabs. When God transferred these to the Arabs, they in turn became nobler than the non-Arabs. They say, "We mawali, as non-Arabs in the past, are nobler than the Arabs, and as Arabs in the present we are nobler than the non-Arabs. The non-Arabs have a past but no present, the Arabs have a present but no past, while we have both, and he who has two qualities is better than he who has only one. God turned the client from a non-Arab into an Arab by clientage as He made the Arab ally of Quraysh a Quraysh member by alliance and made Ismail [Ishmael] an Arab from a non-Arab. Had not the Prophet, may God bless and save him, said that Isma'il was an Arab, we could not regard him as anything but a non-Arab, because the non-Arab cannot become an Arab, as the Arab cannot become a non-Arab, and we know that God made Ismail an Arab after he had been a non-Arab because the Prophet may God bless and save him, said so. The same applies to his sayings, 'The mawali of a tribe belong to it,' and 'Clientage is a form of kinship.' " They also say: God made Abraham, peace be upon him, the father of men whom he did not engender as well as of those whom he did engender. He made the wives of the Prophet the mothers of the believers, though they had no children, and made the guardian the father of someone whom he did not engender. They said many other things, which we cited in their proper place. Nothing is more conducive to evil and corruption than boasting contests, and all but a few of mankind are boasters. What can be more galling than that your slave should claim to be nobler than you are, while admitting that he became noble because you freed him?